Cannabis Hemp:

The Invisible Prohibition Revealed

By R. William Davis

Dedicated to Major Donnie Holland, USMC:

Shot down and listed as Missing in Action,
Operation Desert Storm, Iraq, January 1991.

This one's for you, Cousin...

Copyright © 1991, 1997 R. William Davis

All Rights Reserved

Foreward To The 1997 Republished Edition

It has been almost six years since I first wrote this small booklet about the
evidence of a big business/government conspiracy to suppress the Cannabis Hemp
industry here in America. At the time, I was a volunteer for the Gatewood
Galbraith for Governor of Kentucky campaign here in Louisville, during the 1991
Democratic Primary Campaign. Since those first early days - when hemp activists
were subjected to terrible insults from an uninformed public, police harassment,
and worse - more and more evidence of conspiracy has been revealed, the
suppressed history of the hemp industry in America has been restored, and the
vast practical value and economic potential of the hemp plant, for both industrial
and medical use, is now a regular feature in the Mainstream Media.

Time is running short for "General" McCaffery and his Keystone Kops of the
DEA, and running even shorter for the Ministry of Propaganda - otherwise known
as the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). As one of our own once said,
"what a long strange trip its been."

So right, brother Jerry.

It is now time to prepare for the Drug War Crimes Trials that must soon be
inititiated by the people. Atrocities have been committed: against the people and
the Constitution of this great land. Those that carry out the day to day criminal
operations for the Drug War / Prohibition conspiracy now have enough verifiable
information to know that their actions are in violation of human rights,
Constitutional rights, and the code of morality upon which civilized society is
founded. Local, state, or federal employees who willfully carry out the illegal
orders of their criminally-liable superiors - be they government officials, elected
representatives, military officers or law enforcement bureaucrats, and corporation
 executives, as well - should now consider themselves on notice that they will be
identified, charged and prosecuted for war crimes by the people. The further
persecution of American farmers, medical patients, cannabis activists, journalists,
doctors, members of fully-informed juries, or anyone else is a criminal activity,
and will no longer be tolerated. Ignorance is no excuse. If you cannot find the
strength to say no, if you do not have the integrity to resign, then you have not the
honor to call yourself Americans.

Notice is given. A new day is dawning.

R. William Davis
Louisville, Kentucky
1 February 1997

Introduction to the 1991 Original Edition

No one will deny that the Marijuana Prohibition has recently become a subject of
increased public debate.

There is, however, considerable misunderstanding on both sides of the current

debate, especially in the Media, over the reason for this growing interest in the
Cannabis Hemp plant's potential as an alternative source of energy, fuel oil and
industrial raw materials. Press coverage of the Gatewood Galbraith for Governor
Campaign, for example, only refers to the "Marijuana" smoking issue,
intentionally suppressing all information about the Cannabis Hemp plant's other
uses.

At the core of this new movement to re-examine the historical, political and
economic roots of the 54 year old Marijuana / Cannabis Hemp Prohibition is the
book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes," by Jack Herer, a California writer and
20 year veteran of Hemp research.

In "The Emperor," Herer makes some amazing claims about the potential of the
Cannabis Hemp plant to "replace all fossil fuels and their derivatives...provide the
overall majority of our paper, textiles," and "meet all the world's transportation,
home and industrial energy needs, reduce pollution, rebuild the soil and clean the
atmosphere -- all at the same time..."

Herer documents these claims in "The Emperor" and has offered $10,000 to
anyone who can "prove him wrong."

You're probably smiling to yourself and thinking "no way, it couldn't be that
easy," right? After all, Cannabis Hemp grows like a weed. No more oil shortage,
because gasoline would be growing on trees. The Big Oil companies would
finally have some real competition instead of leading us all around by our noses.
 The American economy would stabilize and the Family Farmer would replace the
Robber Barons of Wall Street and the Middle Eastern Sheiks.

How could something like this have been overlooked for so long? All our science,
our technology...our "experts" couldn't have missed something this important.
Could they?

I believe that no matter where you stand on the Marijuana issue, after reading this
you will agree that there are some questions that need to be answered.

This debate has only just begun.

R. William Davis
Louisville, Kentucky
7 May 1991

Historical Perspective:

America at the Crossroads

In 1929, the bottom dropped out of the Stock Market, throwing the nation into
economic turmoil. The Great Depression was a time of hardship, massive
unemployment and starvation for millions. Farmers, workers and businessmen
lost everything they had worked for years to achieve.

Then, in 1935, an event occurred that had the potential to help America recover. It
was the invention of the equipment needed to mechanize the once-vital Cannabis
Hemp industry which, since around the turn of the century, had been displaced by
foreign imports of Hemp products from countries where labor was cheap.

In February, 1938, Popular Mechanics published an article which described the

significance of a reborn American Hemp industry in these terms:

"Billion Dollar Crop"

"American farmers are promised a new cash crop with an annual value of
several million dollars, all because a machine has been invented...it will
provide thousands of jobs for American workers throughout the land.

"Hemp is the standard fiber of the world. It has great tensile strength and
durability...and can be used to produce 25,000 products, ranging from
dynamite to Cellophane.

"The natural materials in Hemp make it an economical source of pulp for

any grade of paper manufactured, and the high percentage of alpha
 cellulose promises an unlimited supply of raw material for the thousands
of cellulose (plastic) products our chemists have developed.

"All of these products, now imported, can be produced from home-grown

Hemp. Fish nets, bow strings, canvas, strong rope, overalls, damask
tablecloths, fine linen garments, towels, bed linen and thousands of other
everyday items can be grown on American farms...all of this income can
be made available to Americans."

"The paper industry offers even greater possibilities. As an industry, it

amounts to over $1,000,000,000 a year, and of that, eighty percent is
imported. But Hemp will produce every grade of paper, and government
figures estimate that 10,000 acres devoted to Hemp will produce as much
paper as 40,000 acres of average (timber) pulp land.

"The connection of Hemp as a crop and Marijuana seems to be

exaggerated. If federal regulations can be drawn to protect the public
without preventing the legitimate culture of Hemp, this crop can add
immeasurably to American agriculture and industry."

Ok, so what happened to the 25,000 non-Marijuana products that were offered by
this re-vitalized American Hemp industry? Who finally did take over domestic
production of all those foreign Hemp imports?

Looking in the stores today it's pretty clear who took over those and almost every
other market, around that same time. Paper is made from wood-pulp using a
chemical process patented by the DuPont Chemical Corporation in the mid-
1930's. Cloth is made from cotton or synthetic fibers, both of which are dependent
on the Petrochemical industry: cotton for the tons of fertilizers and pesticides
required for its cultivation; and synthetic fibers for the cellulose which is the raw
material from which all plastics are produced. All the potential Hemp products
have, in some way, been replaced by Oil-Petrochemical raw materials or chemical
processes.

Today, people are shocked to learn that the Cannabis Hemp plant is useful for
anything other than smoking the flower tops and leaves known as Marijuana. All
other uses of Hemp have been removed from the public records, especially its
potential as an alternative source of paper, cloth and plastic.

But we can now see that, in the 1930's, people were just as surprised to discover
that many things could be made from Oil that had, till then, only been made with
Hemp. We've come full circle.

Paper, cloth and plastics were not the only markets that Oil took over from
Cannabis Hemp. Hemp seed oil was used in paints and varnishes, lacquers and oil
lamps, and had been refined into a high-grade diesel fuel and precision machine
oil for years.

These non-Marijuana by-products of Cannabis Hemp are ignored by the

established Media. For the best example consider the fact that the Louisville news
organizations have given little, if any, press coverage that the Pro-Hemp
candidate Gatewood Galbraith drives a station wagon that is powered by a Hemp-
oil mixture. Gas that literally grows on trees is News. Why is it not reported?

It is clear from the historical record that America stood at the crossroads in the
mid-1930's. One path led to a revived American Hemp industry; thousands of
high quality, low cost consumer products, an abundant, agriculturally-renewable
source of energy, fuel and industrial raw materials; and a broad-based regional
economy that would enrich the farmer, laborer and small businessman, and the
communities in which they lived and worked.

The other path, the one that was chosen for us, protected the established Paper,
Textile and Oil industries from marketplace competition by creating Marijuana
Prohibition. This action crushed the hopes and dreams of millions of American
family farmers, laborers and small businessmen by effectively criminalizing the
cultivation of Cannabis Hemp for any purpose, even those products that had no
relation to Marijuana.

The origin of the present Marijuana Prohibition can be traced back to passage of
the Marijuana Tax Act by Congress in 1937. This bill was written by U.S.
Treasury Department officials who claimed that Marijuana posed an unreasonable
threat to society, and that the world would be a better, safer place to live and raise
children in without it.

Today, over 50 years later, we can see that this policy is directly responsible for
creating our present addiction to Oil and its Petrochemical derivatives, the
domination of our economy, marketplace and the American political process by a
few major industries, and the rampant destruction of the Environment all over the
world, all in the name of Corporate Profit.

Marijuana Prohibition has not protected anyone. The established and well-
documented deadly side-effects of Petrochemical by-products, processes and
toxic waste fill literally thousands of scientific journals, textbooks and official
government reports, while the proclaimed hazards of Marijuana smoking are still
a matter of professional speculation and debate. Americans have died, and others
are still at risk in Iraq to protect a source of foreign Oil that we need only because
American farmers are not allowed to grow Cannabis Hemp for the production of
alternative fuel. (And if you don't think this was an Oil War, ask a Kurd.) Its time
we faced reality.
 In "The Emperor," author Jack Herer charges that the true purpose of the
Marijuana Prohibition was to eliminate the domestic Hemp industry. After several
years of extensive research, Herer writes that "a bigger picture of Cannabis Hemp
and its suppression came together . . . a malicious conspiracy to suppress, not a
'killer weed' but the world's premier renewable natural resource, for the benefit of
a handful of wealthy and powerful individuals and corporations."

Is this possible? It certainly would explain why it's legal for the Petrochemical
industry to produce enough toxic waste every year to fill the Louisiana
Superdome 15,000 times, but a Felony to grow a plant that could put that industry
out of business.

Marijuana Prohibition:

A Study in Unconstitutional Law

"In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior
industry . . . every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when
laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial
distinctions . . . and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the
potent more powerful, the humble members of society - the farmers,
mechanics, and laborers, - have neither the time nor the means for
securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the
injustice of their government."

-- President Andrew Jackson (1)

Texas, in 1914, became the first state to request Federal control of Marijuana. The
Federal Government responded by outlawing importation of Mexican Marijuana
that was not for medical use, but refused to regulate domestic Cannabis for 21
years, until the equipment needed to mechanize the Hemp industry became
available in 1935. (2)

The Marijuana Tax Act was prepared during two years of secret meetings, held by
Treasury Department officials between 1935 and 1937. At no time was the
American Medical Association consulted for an opinion on the health effects of
Marijuana smoking and were not even informed that the meetings were taking
place. (3)

Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of

Narcotics (and former Assistant Commissioner of Alcohol Prohibition),
personally led the debate for passage of the bill through Congress. No expert
medical or scientific evidence was introduced to establish that Marijuana
represented a threat to its users or to society. Anslinger's testimony consisted
mainly of reading sensational articles from tabloids which, for years, had fanned
the flames of "Reefer Madness" to sell more newspapers. (4)
Dr. William C. Woodward, who represented the AMA during the hearings,
dismissed Anslinger's testimony as being "factually inaccurate" and complained
that the AMA had not been consulted earlier. Woodward stated for the record that
the AMA opposed passage of the Marijuana Tax Act and would have done so
earlier but the medical community was not aware "until two days" before the
hearings that the "killer weed from Mexico" that the Government was planning to
outlaw was actually Cannabis, which had been safely prescribed by doctors for
over 100 years. (5)

Ralph Loziers, general counsel for the National Oil Seed Institute, also opposed
the Marijuana Tax Act. Speaking before the House Ways and Means Committee
Loziers stated that "this bill brings the activities - the crushing of this great
industry under the supervision of a bureau - which may mean its suppression." (6)

Loziers' statement raises a very important point. Historically and legally, the
Marijuana Tax Act did not authorize any Federal regulation or restriction of the
Cannabis Hemp industry. When Senator Prentiss M. Brown, chairman of the
subcommittee, asked "what dangers, if any, does this bill have for persons
engaged in the legitimate uses of the Hemp plant?" Anslinger replied "I would say
that they are not only amply protected under this Act, but that they can go ahead
and raise Hemp just as they have always done it." This assurance was also given
by C.M. Hester, Assistant General Counsel for the Treasury Department, who
testified for the record that "the production and sale of Hemp and its products for
industrial purposes will not be adversely affected by this bill." (7)

Brown, Anslinger and Hester knew these assurances were critical to the passage
of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Why? Because, just a few months earlier, on
January 6, 1936, the Supreme Court had ruled the Agricultural Adjustment Act
unconstitutional because agriculture was "not a matter of interstate commerce and
beyond the powers of Congress to regulate, even under the General Welfare
clause" (United States vs Butler). (8)

Clearly, the policy to create a Marijuana Prohibition based on the Marijuana Tax
Act of 1937, and extend its provisions to restrict all cultivation of Cannabis
Hemp, was outside the Constitutional authority of the Federal Government.
Congress could not regulate agriculture. Alcohol Prohibition required a
Constitutional Amendment (18th) and, even then, applied only to the improper
use of grains, etc. It did not criminalize the cultivation or possession of corn or
barley. To have done so would have been not only illegal, but ridiculous.

The deceptions involved in the creation of our present Marijuana Prohibition

indicate that Anslinger and other Federal officials knew that this policy was
illegal and improper, otherwise, such deceptions would have been unnecessary.
Herer's charges cannot be dismissed.
 It is interesting to remember that both Federal Prohibitions have been against
agriculturally renewable alternative fuel sources.

Whether the Marijuana Prohibition was born from conspiracy or simply the
ignorance of the "Reefer Madness" hysteria that existed in the 1930's, the re-
legalization of the Cannabis Hemp industry must become an American priority in
the 1990's. Hemp is of vital interest to our National Security, the stabilization of
our economy, and the preservation of the Environment.

Victory for Hemp:

Heretics and Inquisition

"But I also know, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the
progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more
enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths are disclosed and
manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances,
institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times..."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 40 years after ratification of the Constitution.

The World is not flat, but round like a ball.

No surprise there. Of course it's round, and everyone knows it. It is one of the
"accepted truths" of our society. Like most "accepted truths," this no longer
requires justification.

A few hundred years ago, however, the flat shape of the earth was just as much an
"accepted truth" of that society. People who said otherwise in public often
disappeared in the middle of the night. They were arrested and brought before the
Inquisition for trial. The charge was Heresy. If these Heretics did not publicly
admit that they were wrong, that the world was, after all, flat like a pancake, they
were thrown into the dungeon, tortured and executed.

Heretics have always had to be silenced by an Inquisition, not because they were
wrong, but because they challenged the "accepted truths" of the Society, upon
which the Church and State had built their foundations.

History is a progression of these truths, heretics and the Inquisitions created to

protect the interests of those few individuals whose power and authority were
threatened. Millions of people have suffered and died for their religious, scientific
or political beliefs despite the fact that within the heresy they spoke was the seed
of one of the "accepted truths" of the next, often better, society.
 A great thinker once said something to the effect that: never has the power of the
State, nor the cruelty of the Inquisition, ever withstood the force of change from
an idea whose time has come.

As we approach the final years of the 20th Century, our society has new "accepted
truths" upon which the modern State has built its foundations. We have our own
heretics, Herer, Galbraith and others, who offer us the seed of another idea.

We have a new Inquisition also, and if this society allows the cycle to continue,
we will certainly have a new Revolution.

Change is inevitable. We must re-evaluate the wisdom of both the Cannabis

Hemp Prohibition and our deadly addiction to the Oil-based Petrochemicals that
are poisoning our planet. Only by facing reality now, in the 1990's, can we avoid
great hardship in the future.

The public interest will only be served when the Cannabis Hemp issue is openly
explored and debated in the media, the courts and by our elected representatives
in local, state and federal government.

Cannabis Hemp is, like everything else, no more and no less than we choose to
make it. It is one more tool for our mutual survival and the survival of our
children. Hemp is not a drug issue, it is a consumer and environmental issue.

We must all, smoker and non-smoker alike, agree to disagree on the question of
Marijuana smoking and join together to demand an immediate investigation into
the apparent conflict of interest involved in the creation and continued
enforcement of the Cannabis Hemp Prohibition. Every day we fail to
communicate is a victory for those Special Interests who count their profits as
they rape the Planet Earth.

The potential use of Cannabis Hemp as an alternative source of energy, fuel and
industrial raw materials, of paper, cloth and plastics, has been known and
intentionally suppressed for over 50 years by key government, corporate and
education officials.

Get angry. Ask questions. Write letters. Demand answers. Join the fight for our
survival. Join the Free Hemp Movement. Support your local Freedom Fighters.
Hemp for Victory!

Closing Thoughts

"Suppose you go to Washington and try to get at your Government. You

will always find that while you are politely listened to, the men really
consulted are the men who have the biggest stake - the big bankers, the big
 manufacturers, the big masters of commerce...The Government of the
United States at present is a foster child of Special Interests."

-- President Woodrow Wilson

"The only way that democracy can be made bearable is by developing and
cherishing a class of men sufficiently honest and disinterested to challenge
the prevailing quacks. No such class has ever appeared in strength in the
United States. Thus the business of harassing the quacks devolves upon
the newspapers. When they fail in their duty, which is usually, we are at
the quacks' mercy."

-- H.L. Mencken

"The end of the institution, maintenance and administration of government

is to secure the existence of the body politic: to protect it, and to furnish
the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying, in safety and
tranquillity, their natural rights and the blessings of life; and whenever
these great objects are not ordained, the people have a right to alter the
government and to take measures necessary for their safety, happiness and
prosperity."

-- President John Adams

Notes

* Introduction:

The Emperor Wears No Clothes, back cover

* Historical Perspective:

Popular Mechanics, February, 1938 (Reprinted in The Emperor, ppg. 16-

18)

* Marijuana Prohibition:

1. The Irony of Democracy, p. 66

2. Marijuana Conviction, (Reprinted in The Emperor, p. 116)
3. The Emperor, ppg. 20-25
4. Senate Transcripts, (Reprinted in The Emperor, ppg. 126-131)
5. The Emperor, p. 25
6. Ibid., ppg. 25-26
7. Senate Transcripts, (Reprinted in The Emperor. p. 129)
8. War and Troubled Peace, 1917-1939, p. 234
 * Heretics and Inquisition:

Power, Inc., p. 10

* Closing Quotes:

Who Runs Congress?, p. 29

Power, Inc., p. 422
Ibid., p. 763

Acknowledgements

Jack Herer, "Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy: THE EMPEROR WEARS NO
CLOTHES", (California: HEMP Publishing, 1990)

Richard J. Bonnie and Charles Whitebread II, "The Marijuana Conviction, Part
One: The Birth of Prohibition," Common Sense for America, 1989 (Reprinted in
The Emperor)

Morton Mintz and Jerry S. Cohen, "Power, Inc.," (New York: Bantam Books,
1977)

Thomas R. Dye and L. Harmon Zeigler, "The Irony of Democracy: an

Uncommon Introduction to American Politics," (California: Wadsworth
Publishing, 1972)

Mark J. Green, James M. Fallows and David R. Zwick, "Who Runs Congress?
The President, Big Business, or You?" the Ralph Nader Congress Project, (New
York: Bantam Books, 1972)

Dumas Malone and Basil Rauch, "War and Troubled Peace, 1917 - 1939," (New
York: Meredith Publishing, 1960)

"Billion Dollar Crop," Popular Mechanics Magazine, February, 1938 (Reprinted

in The Emperor)

Transcripts of Senate Subcommittee Hearings on H.R. 6906, The Marijuana Tax

Act, July 12, 1937 (Reprinted in The Emperor)

[ Hemp ][ Sumeria ]